Got a Case of the Mondays?

Or maybe it's the holidays getting you down. The fabulous (and delicious, bendy, and gigantic) Jacob Markstrom has a cure for what ails you.



I'm endlessly happy that someday he will be playing about two hours away from me when the Panthers give him an NHL gig. Endlessly happy.

All I have left to say is- Gift dig med mig Jakob?

Stick tap to the fabulous Ms. Conduct for bringing that to my attention via Twitter.

Wait for it....

Normally, I wouldn't have any patience for a goalie in a Flyers themed lid.



Nor would I appreciate him and his four game win streak and ECHL goalie of the week honors Ccoming to my barn when my team's goalies deserve every single award the league offers. Even the awards for skaters.



Honestly, I wanted to hate Brian Stewart and his goofy goaltending style and his dumb mask.



And I did manage to... for one period. Then he came on over to my end of the rink and did this...



Let me just transcribe my thoughts as he did his warm-up:

- Oh, hey big boy. Gonna get out position a few more times and let my boys win? I hope so.
- Yup, you're gonna give up so many goals ya big goober.
- Siiieeeevvvveeeee!
- Ooooh, well hello. Look at you. Nice stretching.
- Oh my.
- Oh my.
- Giggle.
- Holy shit you just did a split!YOU JUST DID A SPLIT!
- Oh! Oh!
- WHY IS THERE NO OXYGEN IN THIS ARENA?!
- *untillegible happy noise*
- MARRY ME.

Ahem. Anyway, Brian Stewart. Yes. He's been putting up nice numbers and earned goaltender of the week honors for his four game (now it's five games) win streak. He's a former NCAA goalie... you know what? You guys don't care about this. No normal human being's brain could work after that video. My brain still isn't working at full capacity after witnessing that live.

Let's just all agree that is an excellent warm-up and Brian Stewart is excellent and the only thing that could make it better is a a backbend. Ohhh, never mind. Scratch that, a backbend would have left me comatose for the rest of the game.

I'm not sure how I'm going to survive the next two nights of the series with him trying to impregnate the ice as I watch, but I'm going to tough it out for all of us and take one for the G5H team. Because that's just what I do.

I'll probably need to bring a tank of oxygen though....

YouTube Tuesday

The best way to prepare for tomorrow is a pre-hump day warm-up. I have to admit, I'm a little saddened by the lack of flashy stretching going on in Lightning prospect Pat Nagle's warm-up. Luckily, his play lately has redeemed him.



On a slightly related note- It's almost time for my local arena to be invaded by yummy barely legal college goalies. Unfortunately, I will not be witness to Connor Knapp's backbend. I've cried a little about that to be honest. I'm consoling myself with the promise of fresh... uh... talent.

The Luck of the Irish

I've been extraordinarily absent of late and send my sincere apologies. On the plus side we've added some terrific new ladies to the G5H family.

To make up for my absence I've decided to bring you someone I find completely shiver inducing.

His name is Patrick Killeen. They call him Killer and for good reason. He is big, bendy and deliciously aggressive.

All of this documented amazingness has been provided courtesy of the lovely Swamphockey. I close with this warmup video.

I promised pictures

Let me just tell you, She was so excited to get her picture taken with Bobby the Goalie, and the reason her mouth is open in the second picture, is because she was saying "I love you Goalie"!!!!! So damn cute!!!!

A HUGE Thank you to Bobby for being AMAZING to my little one, even though his team lost, he smiled and let Emma have her Goalie moment with him :)

She's in love......

So this past Sunday, I was lucky enough to take my daughter to see her Uncle play hockey. Now my brother has played since he was 5, and he's been playing ever since. He's 25 now, and he plays in the adult league at Germain Arena. I hadn't seen him play in a few years, and I'm glad I got the chance to see him skate again.

Now Uncle Tyler made SURE that Bob, the teams goalie, knew that Emma was coming to watch and she was in love with goalies. So before the teams went onto the ice, I walked Emma down to where Tyler's team was waiting, and let me just say, my daughter seeing a goalie, up close, was more exciting to her than meeting Mickey Mouse! I didn't think that was possible!  Her whole face lit up and she had the biggest smile! She got a hug and a high five, and honestly, I know I've said this before, but this is the start of a serious love for hockey and the masked bendy men :)


I'm very happy that my daughter is falling in love with the sport, she knew who to cheer for and yelled at the other team when one of their players knocked "Her" goalie over!


She's too damn cute... I promise pictures are coming :)

Awww-some

Meet the latest object of my goalie love.



That's John Muse by the way. He's a Charlotte Checkers prospect that was sent down to my Everblades. He's also totally adorable and pretty inspiring goalie love-wise.

You could almost call him... my new MUSE!

I'm so sorry. I had to do that. It was just sitting there waiting to be said and you know you thought of it too.

One of my favorite things about him is how adorable he is. Watch this video and tell me you don't want to smoosh his face and feed him homemade apple pie. He's just so cute!



Now, if your one of those people who loves flashy goalies he's probably not your cup of tea. He's not going to drop into incredible contortions to make the save. He's was too busy setting himself up and anticipating what was going to happen so that he didn't have to.



Really, he gets my heart racing by not giving me regular heart attacks. And you know what? It's a very refreshing change of pace not to have the object of my goalie love attempting to put me into the hospital.



That's not to say he never throws himself into contortions, he does, He just doesn't do it with the regularity that forces me to keep a copy of heart attack symptoms on hand.



He's on that newfangled Twitter thing too. I find him pretty hilarious.

Did I mention he's won to NCAA championships and currently has the third best GAA in the ECHL right now? Awesome.

YouTube Tuesday: La Fleur de Mon Cœur

We've done posts on Marc-Andre Fleury before, but let's be honest, he's just too fantastic to only do one post on him. On top of him being awesome, is my excitement at getting to see him when I make the haul up to Tampa Thursday to see him. SQUEEEEE!



Consider this a warm-up for hump day people. Tomorrow I have a post on the newest target of my goalie love and he is pure adorkable.

Reasons To Get To Your Seats Early

Sure you want to avoid the rush at the parking lot, get in line first at the concession stands, take your jacket off, get settled in but this is the reason I always make sure to get to my seats early...You don't see much in the first 20 seconds but trust me, you'll want to hang around til about the 22 second mark...this is Semyon Varlamov of the Washington Caps settling in for another day at the office....

Don't always count on seeing that during warm ups (although it is always a nice way to start the game off if you do) but who doesn't love the variety of the "goalie warm up". No two masked men do the same thing but rumor has it, their routine, uniquely their own, is the same day in and day out.  A ritual if you will and we're all invited to watch! A close second to bearing witness to any man that can do the splits is watching them chalk the crease. For those who don't know, exhibit A...chalking the crease...brought to you by Caps Prospect and Hersey Bears netminder Braden Holtby

And when the goalie warm up ends with Brian Elliott my future husband doing this

You too may be finding you need a bit of H20 to cool yourself off rehydrate. And just in case you were going to get up to use the ladies room, grab a drink, or stretch yourself you may want to stick around for the start of the 2nd and 3rd periods or you may miss Neuvirth doing this

Or  Bryan Pitton doing this

What have we learned today? Sure there is a ton of action during three periods of hockey, but if it's the goalies that hold a special place in your inappropriate "I hope nobody can see what I am currently thinking" daydreams heart, the real action happens before the game /period even begins!

A Little of This A Little of That....

Hello everyone! I too am very excited to be here (writing at G5H that is) and hope that you'll enjoy my posts as much as I enjoy reading (ya right, reading!) the ones that have been posted here before me. I am relatively new to the world of hockey fandom (only a few years now) and wonder how as a Canadian I didn't fall in love with the game (or the goalies) earlier in life. I don't have a "favourite" team so to speak. In truth, I just love hockey so  I will watch any hockey I can find be it on tv or here in the city. I'm lucky enough to live in Ottawa where we have both an NHL team (Sens) and an OHL team (Ottawa 67s) so there is definitely no shortage of hockey here. So that's me, now I'd like to introduce you to the man who introduced me to the world of goalie love, meet Brian Elliott:

Look at those eyes. They did it for me. And not only is he incredibly adorable, I've met him and he is incredibly sweet. There were tears when he got traded here:

And a few more when he left there to go here:

Because we don't get too many visits from either of these teams in the course of a season. So, I am left to flip aimlessly through my NHL tv package desperately trying to find a St Louis game just to get a glimpse.

So that's a bit about me! I look forward to sharing more of my goalie love with all of you!

Introductions and such ;)

So hello everyone! I'm Jess, a mommy, full time student and lover of all things hockey. I've been following this blog and Swamp Hockey for a while now, and jumped at the chance to write for G5H! 

Let me give you a little background: 
* I'm originally from Buffalo NY, YES the Sabres are my favorite team, and YES I love Ryan Miller! (*Swoon!*)
* I have grown to love the Tampa Bay Lightning ( Not just a bandwagon type of love, a honest to goodness love)
* I have a almost 4 year old daughter who is IN LOVE with Hockey and Goalies ( I know I'm in SO much trouble!)
* I hate being called a "Puck Bunny!" Seriously, I know the sport! I love the sport and I know how much time and energy and determination it takes for these guys to be on their game each night. 
* I have a  amazing fiance who I've introduced hockey to, and he LOVES the game now!


I'm excited to share my hockey love with you all!
Thanks for having me!

And I leave you with the first (of many I'm sure) picture of my Daughter.... This was at the College Classic last December, her first ever hockey game, and where she discovered her absolute love for Goalies :) *Like Mother Like Daughter*

Almost There...

So far, we've managed to add two new contributors to our roster here at G5H. I'm pumped that we'll be able to bring you lovely stretchy goalies more often. Until we get our new goalie lovin' ladies up and running, please enjoy this video @icebaby20 was kind enough to tweet a link to earlier today.



As I said to my cat (good lord that makes me sound like a crazy cat lady), I have no clue what he's saying, but he can babble away in Finnish as much as he wants.

RAWR.

 I'm pretty sure if it all came down to deciding between a Finnish goalie of my own to... uh... cuddle (because that's what we'd all do with our own Finnish goalie, amiright?), or never eating peanut butter cups again, I would have a new ginger, bendy man, that I couldn't understand in my life.

Hello?

Well, it turns out we're the worst bloggers on Earth. The good news is, I've come up with a brilliant idea! We need more writers on this blog! I figure with more people we'll have a better chance of reducing the slacking and actually getting you guys a regular serving of yummy goalie.

So, how do you get in on this? Simple, shoot an email off to SwampHockey@gmail.com. If it's in English and there are no typos you're in. If you can geta  post up every other week at the very least I'll be happy. My main goal is to keep this blog going.

Think about it, you too can write barely subtle double entendres about goalies like our lovely friend Jonathan Quick.



Good lord. He's so fabulous I can't think of anything clever to say.

Um... anyway... yeah, shoot me a line if you think you can handle staring at picture and videos of goalies all day.

Hey There!

Well, looks like we're back.

As a way of apologizing for neglecting all of you I will share this video.Because lets be honest, sometimes videos do goalies much more justice than a photo can.



Oh yes they do.

That lovely fellow is Shane Owen by the way. I have the materials for a full length post somewhere around here. I just have to find the words that can capture his awesomeness.

We're Back...and We Brought a Friend

As the kids go back to school and summer comes to an end it's time to get back into the swing of things. I was recently surfing through our Twitter feed when I discovered a gem of a lady. Her name is Rachel Lindstrand and she writes a charming blog entitled huggingthepost56.

Her posts explore her life, love and happiness in the crazy world of professional hockey. Her latest post inspired (full paragraph 22) me and so I pass that inspiration on to you.

Now most of the time I'm unaware of goalies significant people so we unashamedly ogle. This time I'm going for mostly classy and we mean no disrespect to either party.

We're simply about admiration, Rachel and Mike are both cute as a button.

Photo courtesy of 560XLS

See the story behind this game on Rachel's blog.

Dishy Goalie Monday-Henrik Lundqvist

I know it's been awhile, but we're back with DGM. Seeing as how the 2010-2011 hockey season is at a close I was looking for inspiration, I did what most modern writers do when they're looking for inspiration... I googled. I'm not ashamed to say that I googled "shirtless hockey goalie" because you would too (or already have).

The result of my search is the one and only Henrik Lundqvist. Now I will fully admit that I have respected Mr. Lundqvist's skills in net for quite awhile, but before today I never paid attention to his engaging smile or powerful eyes. Boy was I missing out.

Now I think that the pictures mostly speak for themselves....

Ode To a Goalie

(Bear with me guys, poetry has never been my gift)



Few words can describe Nic
Fewer yet for his big stick



The things he inspires in this chick
Is captured with a cameras click



As he bends, stretches, and kicks
All his movements quick



I become as coherent as a brick

Terrible right? Well, it could have been worse. I could have found some way to include certain other words that rhyme with Nic in there.


Anyway, Meet Nicola "Nic" Riopel. He's a 2009 Flyers draft pick. As much as I'd love to hold that against him I can't. He's just too stinking adorable.



Seriously, that accent! That hair! Oy vey. How can you not want to take him home and... uh... admire him. Yup. I wasn't going to say anything other than admire.

Friday Quickie

Sorry about the absence guys, but I really have to believe this will make it up to you.



You guys remember Connor Knapp right? He was one of the stars of one of our earliest posts. Turns out, he's on Twitter and he's adorable.

He was also kind enough to prove my hypothesis that goalies know exactly what they're doing when they stretch.

I really hope Miami of Ohio comes back to our local College tournament. I'll reserve a memory card just for him.

Starring Pekka Rinne as Mr. Darcy

As summer approaches I've made a pact with myself to expand my mind and not my waist line. With that goal I've begun reading the complete works of Jane Austen (in between hockey games).

Pride and Prejudice got the honour of being the first and with it Mr. Darcy makes an appearance. No, he isn't really named Mr. Darcy. No, I'm not Elizabeth Bennet. No we don't hate each other then fall in love. In fact he doesn't know I exist (though until recently I didn't know he existed either).

Pekka Rinne of the Nashville Predators is one attractive man. He came to my notice during this years playoff run (lord I've been missing out).

So why Mr. Darcy...

Pekka Rinne is honourable. He stood on his head for his team, made some incredible saves, and remained poised throughout the high pressure playoff atmosphere.

Dishy Goalie Monday-Michael Leighton

Pokechick gleefully pointed out that we here at G5H shun the Philadelphia Flyers and all of their affiliates. It's true. For the most part I can't stand the Flyers, but their is something about a goalie in orange pads that warms my heart (see Zane Kalemba).

So without further ado, this weeks DGM is......... Michael Leighton.

Leighton was not on the casual hockey fans radar until the 2009-2010 playoffs where Leighton proved clutch for the Flyers.

This year he has spent most of the regular season playing in the AHL for the Adirondack Phantoms. Over 30 games with the Phantoms Leighton posted a respectable 2.22 GAA and a .926 SV% and looked mighty fine doing it.

Leighton has once again joined the Philadelphia Flyers for a playoff run.

Is there anything sexier?

What's Not to Love?

I've admitted my love for minor league journeymen before. One of my favorites? Todd Ford. Seriously, check out his stats. Dude has been around more than a puck bunny with daddy issues (oooooh, too far?).



I've been watching him come through for a couple of seasons now and I have to say he nice to watch. Aside from really filling up the crease...



mmmmmmmm...biggoalie...mmmmmmmm....





... uh, yeah... where was I? Oh, yeah, dude fills up the crease. Right. Uh, he also has some bad ass tatste in music if his mask is any indication.



I just can't help but adore a man who appreciates Johnny Cash.



Add to that his penchant for coming out of the crease and its true goalie-love.



I don't think there is really anything left to say, so, I will leave you with this hilarious video of Ford and his Stingray teammates taking on a local Boys and Girls club in a rousing game of dodgeball.